The Earth is Our Precious Home, PBL Unit
This unit was designed for Grades 2 or 3 by Yissel Martinez
CORE 21; UNIT PLANNING WORKSHEET Name: Yissel Martinez
1. Unit topic: Earth 2. Duration of Unit:
● 2 weeks unit
● PBL: First week
3. Topic ideas:
● The Earth is our precious home.
● The Earth provides us with air to breath, food to eat and water to
drink.
● People, animals, plants depend on our Earth to survive.
● Our Earth is in danger because many people do not take care of
the Earth.
4. Standards:
After our PBL:
● Students will understand that the Earth depends on us and that we must take care of it for its survival.
● Students will work collaboratively using critical thinking to come up with solutions on what can we do to take care of our Earth? (Plant trees, recycle, throw trash in the garbage, not wasting or polluting water, protecting endangered animals, etc.)
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● Students will use creativity manipulating different objects such as wooden cubes, counters, legos, writing tools, objects found outdoors, etc. to create their final project for their presentation.
5. Objectives:
● Create: Students will investigate outdoors and collect things given
by our Earth to create a list to start with the project. Students will also create their model to explain why we need or don’t need the item chosen.
● Evaluate: Students will evaluate if the list made has things that come from nature or if they are human made. Evaluate if we need or don’t need them and why?
● Analyze: Students will analyze all the things they brought inside. We will question ourselves together: What are they? Why do we need them? What can we do with them? What happens if we don’t have them any more? What happens to our planet/animals/people if we have them? Etc.
● Apply: Demonstrate why we need all these things. Sketch out and write, for example, how birds use sticks to make a nest or how bees need flowers to take pollen out and make honey. Make a model to show your findings.
● Understand: Students will discuss as a group the need of all the things our planet has and the importance of taking care of them and our Earth. We will describe the use of things brought inside (how living things depend on these objects).
● Remember: Students will remember every time they go outside to watch for these and many more gifts from our planet because now they know how important these are.
6. Have students discuss what they will be doing and describe what they will be learning in this unit.
Guide discussion to what role they have (things found outside) and the impact they make on the surrounding environment.
7. How will you assess your students?
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In PK we do not assess thematic units, but we do assess non-academic areas, literacy and math. So, I plan to assess following our rubrics with anecdotal notes and checklist during the process:
● Eagle way
● Habits of the mind
● Personal and social development
● Cognitive development
● Reading
● Writing
● Fine Motor
● Art
● English language
8. Design all assessments prior to beginning instruction—this is the heart of backward design.
- Writing piece
- Model
- Final presentation
9. Design rubrics for your assessments for all of the concepts and standards you will be working on.
Use existing rubrics to assess academic and non academic, we will assess:
Non-Academic areas
● Eagle way: Be responsible, be respectful, be caring, be honest and be a thinker
● Habits of the mind: Restrain impulsivity and perseverance
● Personal and social development: Group work
● Cognitive development: Creativity, questioning and answering,
curiosity and desire to learn, contribution of thoughts and ideas.
Academic Areas
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● Writing: Students will be asked to write phrases and labels. We can assess:
o Applies conventional letter sounds in context of writing (using inventive spelling)
● Fine Motor: Students will be provided with different materials which
they will have to manipulate to create their part of the project if they decide to. We can assess:
o Demonstrates strength and control to use a variety of tools o Uses writing and drawing tools with increasing control and
intention
o Uses hand-eye coordination to complete tasks
● Art: Writing pieces will include drawings and using different materials, so we can assess:
o Makes increasingly representational drawings. o Actively involved in art activities
● Final presentation: demonstrate what have we learned by sharing their findings with another class, explaining the process demonstrating why we need to take care of our planet and their conclusions. Here we will assess:
o English language: participates in group discussions (sharing ideas and responding to questions)
o Personal and social development: Demonstrate self-confidence (expressing own opinion, eye contact, taking risks and participating)
10. Clearly work out and share your unit’s essential questions.
How does the Earth take care of us and we take care of the Earth?
11. If you are working on a problem or project based unit (both are known as PBL) design out your entry activity.
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Students will do a scavenger hunt on the playground area trying to get as many things as possible they find (from nature and human made) and bring them into the classroom to make a list and classify them.
12. If you are working on a PBL, clearly work out your statements of the problem to be solved.
Students will understand that people, animals and plants depend on our Earth to survive and is our job to take care of it.
13. Plan your anticipated sequence of instruction for the unit.
Scavenger hunt
Make a list on chart paper
Identify things answering to the next question: what role they
have and the impact they make on the surrounding
environment.
Make groups depending on students interests and let them discuss their item from the list they will work with.
Writing piece (model).
Crate your model.
Teach to another classroom why we need or don’t need
things found outside.
14. What will you have to differentiate?
Make groups of 4 or 5 members with different strengths some will be in charged of the writing and others of the drawings. Everyone will participate in the research, creative planning and building.
15. What needs have to be addressed?
- Writing tables depending on students needs - Academic and non academic assessments
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16. Anticipate potential problems.
● Pre kinder students can’t research by themselves we must provide them with as many opportunities as possible to come up with real information ideas.
● Students need help cutting some hard recycle materials and/or pasting, we will help them following their instructions on how to do it.
16. Check the level of rigor.
The purpose of this PBL is to make students think and solve a real world problem in a different way. We always teach this unit by describing problems such as pollution and showing them some solutions such as planting trees and seen how plants grow. In this PBL students will be able to look at this problem from another perspective; why do we need all the things the Earth gives us? And, How some things that humans produce harm our environment?
● Why do we need our Earth? Why do we depend on it and it depends on us?
● Explain what can you do to help our Earth?
● Draw a picture of how we need things in our environment to survive.
17. What instructional tools do you need?
18.
● ● ● ● ●
Technology: videos, computer, projector
Manipulatives: wooden blocks, legos, shapes, magnatiles, etc. Recycle material
Writing tools and paper
Non fiction books from the library
What vocabulary do you have to teach?
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Environment Earth Nature
Hunt
Waste Nectar Pollute Litter Recycle
19. If you are working on a PBL students will have to make a final presentation. Plan your audience.
PKF students will make a presentation to another classroom at the end of the week. The presentation will include:
Name of the item
Drawing explaining what it is.
Model to explain why they chose it and if it is necessary for our
environment or harmful for it.
Answer the question: How does the Earth take care of us and we
take care of the Earth? Referring to the item they chose
Conclusions
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